Vista design being forced on XP?

This is a discussion on Vista design being forced on XP? within the A Brief History of Cprogramming.com forums, part of the Community Boards category; Will anyone mention usability?
I thought we were a programmers forum... just asking.
EDIT: Ah! Kennedy just did. Thank you....

Heh, wasn't that discussed already with Microsoft's Office Ribbon? How they take away the menus and add ribbons and toolbars instead?
You're right. An easy to use GUI is the most important of all, then speed, and then a pretty GUI.
But a pretty GUI shouldn't waste system resources either, and we'll all be happy. I think.

Well yes but then we are talking about priorities, some people will want better functionality, others will want retarded ribbons that makes your computer slow, in either way, it's not really wasting resources. Just as some people will want to spend their money on fast cars and others will spend it on expensive hardware...

The option is better than none. However I spend quite some time on a new Windows install turning off all the garbage that shouldn't have been there in the first place. GUIs that force their own interface &^%# me off. Fancy "features" that you actually don't use or need that waste my time &^%# me off just as much. Why do drop-down menus "slide" open by default? Are we all so horrifically retarded that this is actually amusing?

And yet... near the top of our feature list for the next release was to add (as an option) the Office 2007 look and feel, which is basically just ribbons. Why? Because sex sells. We ask our devoted customers and hard core users what they think, and of course they'd much rather the effort be put into real meaty issues. But that doesn't mean that there aren't thousands of other customers or potential customers that wouldn't prefer ribbons or wouldn't think that the product is nicer/better/more modern than the competition that is fugly.

The option is better than none. However I spend quite some time on a new Windows install turning off all the garbage that shouldn't have been there in the first place. GUIs that force their own interface &^&#37;# me off. Fancy "features" that you actually don't use or need that waste my time &^%# me off just as much. Why do drop-down menus "slide" open by default? Are we all so horrifically retarded that this is actually amusing?

Uhhh... wow.
It's prettier, that's all. It's nice to look at than just some box popping up right out of nowhere.
All those who seem to think like this... GUIs are evil, pretty interfaces are evil, memory is everything, processor power is everything... Sometimes I think that they're all better off with DOS, and I can't figure out why.
Why is it so important? Why is everything pretty bad? Why is GUI bad? Why is CLI good?
Do you not like pretty things? Do you dull, ugly things? I'm sure you'd rather want a pretty vase than an ugly one. And the same goes for everything else... so why are computers and GUIs exceptions?
Or am I off the target here?

Do you not like pretty things? Do you dull, ugly things? I'm sure you'd rather want a pretty vase than an ugly one. And the same goes for everything else... so why are computers and GUIs exceptions?
Or am I off the target here?

I swear, if you say it is pretty again I'm gonna smack you.

You are indeed just a tad bit off the target. The issue is not about some people liking it, other not. The issue is about you not being able to do anything about it, if you don't like it. Especially when you already instructed your OS to not use the fluff as I have been doing ever since windows friggin'95 (before that we didn't have this problem).

It is also about the fact the GUI changes in completely unusual ways. This is disruptive. User friendliness is also about consistency. You shouldn't tell people to relearn how to operate their OS every new version. And finally its about usability, this GUI is simply horrid. There's no file menu anymore! The working area is enormously reduced because of the size of those ribbon things. The logic is confusing with help items being spread in the ribbon and on the help menu and... on the Application Icon! Same goes for other usual stuff like items that you used to see on the ever present View menu now being scattered even on the status bar.

Uhhh... wow.
It's prettier, that's all. It's nice to look at than just some box popping up right out of nowhere.

I fail to see how it's pretier. It wastes time. It suppresses the beauty of my amazingly fast piece of electronics by pretending that a graphic button can't be loaded instantly.

There are plenty of attractive features of many applications that don't detract from the useability. It's when I realise that my archaic PII machines can run a DamnSmallLinux distro and surf the net, play music, display movies, and network with my LAN, at speeds rivalling my spanking new Boxes with 64-Bit Dual Cores and 4 gigs of RAM, that I begin to get irate.

It is my profound hope that with the slowing of processor progress in the near future, and Microsofts proclamation to produce a sleeker, thinner, more trimmed down OS, that we'll see application makers finally step up in this area as well. I see no reason at all that my web browser shouldn't open instantly. I mean instantly. I've disabled just about every feature it has to offer (Java, ActiveX, Javascript, Plugins, Sound, AutoComplete, etc), so what am I waiting for exactly?

I think GUIs are getting far more cluttered and fancy than they need to be. Half the time I turn off all the junk just so I can use the program like a normal application. Navigating icons, ribbons, etc, etc, is just terrible. MSN Messenger -oh,sorry, Windows Live Messenger insists on not displaying the menu and hiding the caption bar or title bar by default. Luckily this can be changed so menus are displayed and the title bar as well.

However in my huge list of complaints about Vista, the interface and it's performance were not on the list. Aero is sleek, fast, and nice eye candy. I did not have any problems with Aero on my system and I miss it on my XP. Now I don't miss anything else about Vista so don't peg me as some Vista fanboy because I'm not. How other apps utilized Aero was another story. Most of them tended to heavily abuse their newfound functionality. But the overall basic Aero interface for Vista itself was very nice. Aero rocks.

The option is better than none. However I spend quite some time on a new Windows install turning off all the garbage that shouldn't have been there in the first place. GUIs that force their own interface &^%# me off. Fancy "features" that you actually don't use or need that waste my time &^%# me off just as much. Why do drop-down menus "slide" open by default? Are we all so horrifically retarded that this is actually amusing?

Why to waste time on this?
My computer/Properties/Advanced/Performance/settings/visual effects/Adjust for best performance - Click OK

Obviously. But there is so much more housekeeping than just this simple step.

Also; Some of the options available in this list I can see people enjoying. Others, I wonder why they hog my resources by default. The computer experience should be one of functional ease, simplicity, and reliability. One day, developers will strive for these things first, and others second.